As regrettable as the Latham story is, there’s probably another week in it. MUP publisher Louise Adler has announced that “the release date had been pushed forward two days to tomorrow [i.e. today] and the print run had been doubled over the past three days due to the ‘unprecedented level of interest’ from the public, the media and book sellers”. Stories will thus limp on, but without further ‘events’ to fuel the fire, next weekend is likely to see the more considered reviews, after which the thing will drift into the media ether, leaving exactly what behind? An Australian government with more power in a more secure political position than any since Menzies, perhaps Curtin in ‘43, perhaps ever – freshly armed with a public dirt sheet on the opposition. The risk is that Labor’s present solidarity under fire will shatter into destructive inward acrimony over the turn of events, gifting this radically activist government with an ongoing stream of free political breaks. Reading across the press, the most popular culprit being advanced for internicine flogging is the so-called ‘factional system’ inside the ALP. Let’s be clear. On the evidence of this book so far, apart from the gratuitous cloud cover granted the government, the major political effects will be to retrospectively validate the decisions of those who voted against Latham and undermine the confidence in Labor’s judgement of those who voted for him. On explaining the last, let me make the point that one of the most distinguishing things about the flawed Latham leadership caucus vote, and one that was much commented upon at the time, was the way that it was in fact marked by the shattering of the factions. So, the first time factional discipline broke down over this guy led to tragedy. Can we hold with the farce?
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In all the anyalyses retrospectively determining Latham to be a total flop in every aspect, the fact that he was the guy that delivered the Senate to Howard doesn’t seem to be getting much of a run, even though this outcome will probably do more than anything else that has occured in the previous 9 years to ensure Howard achieves and entrenches the extremes of his agenda.
Unfortunately, Latham’s left his biggest misjudgement as Leader and the biggest disaster of his leadership to the last week of the election campaign. The forest policy debacle not only lost House of Reps seats, but played a key role in delivering the Senate to the Coalition. He got wedged by Howard on the centre–>right, handcuffing himself to the Green’s/Wilderness Society’s smaller wedge on the left.
I wasn’t much of Latham fan before he was Leader. Although he had lots of ideas, many of them seemed to contradict each other and sometimes he seemed to be trying too hard to be clever. And whilst the ‘larrikin’ thing is perhaps better than the ‘white bread’ thing, the abusiveness appeared too frequently for my liking.
When he was Leader, there were some things I thought were OK. A break from Beazley’s innate conservatism and punch-pulling was nice, and it was good to see some left field stuff like reading to kids appear in the mix. People seem to have forgotten that at one stage Howard was sufficiently uneasy about all this sort of thing that he did a cringeworthy photo-op reading to kids himself. Ironically, Latham was capable of arguing the economic stuff, yet that was the area he was perceived to fail at election time.
The other big disaster of Latham’s leadership was the way he left it and the way he has behaved since. That has seriously tainted has entire time in the Leadership, and probably in the Parliament too. Whilst he had a mixed record, he will soon be viewed as having achieved nothing of value at all, which is unfortunate and a bit unfair.
But then I always liked Simon Crean better than Latham or Beazley (although I agree he came across badly on TV), so what would I know?
Shorter Latho: If Labor isn’t stuffed, my book will help in the stuffing thereof.
Historical repeat? : Invisible DLP with a vitriolic book.
Andrew Bartlett wrote:
“Unfortunately, Latham‚Äôs left his biggest misjudgement as Leader and the biggest disaster of his leadership to the last week of the election campaign.”
It was unfortunate, because if he had announced the forest policy a month or more before polling day, there would have been ample time for the voters to: (a) be made aware of what could be done to retrain and re-employ Tasmanian forestry workers with $820 million; and (b) see through Howard’s pea-and-thimble trick of “saving” a great deal of forest which was not going to be logger anyway. It would also not have been possible for Howard to stage a successful media stunt two days before polling day with the assistance of his 5th Column in the Tasmanian ALP and the Forestry Division of the CFMEU. It may also have meant that more coverage of the policy would have been done by specialist environment reporters who understood the issues.
Having said that, I would now like to invite Andrew to: (a) state whether he thinks the problem with the ALP forestry policy was the timing, or the substance; (b) if it was the substance, state what he thinks the policy should have been; (c) quantify and provide evidence for his statement that the forestry policy was crucial in delivering control of the Senate to the Coalition.
I’m adopting a different strategy to try to get my comments to appear.
The brouhaha about Latham’s diaries is having the baleful effect of diverting our attention from some outrageous developments under the Howard government.
The Scott Parkin deportation and proposed new counter-terrorism laws is one. Another is the proposed changes to family law. See:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/custody-wars-put-kids-first/2005/09/18/1126981947815.html
and:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fathers-wins-may-hurt-children-at-risk/2005/09/16/1126750129134.html
Andrew, so what exactly was wrong with Labor’s forestry policy? Did it fall short of the commitments called for in the policy at http://www.democrats.org.au/docs/2004/Forests.pdf?
Do you endorse the criticism of the Labor forestry policy at http://www.democrats.org.au/news/index.htm?press_id=4186&display=1
and do you endorse the criticism of the Coalition’s forest policy at http://www.democrats.org.au/news/index.htm?press_id=4205&display=1?
No Andrew,
Mark didn’t give the Senate to Howard your damned party did.
Not only did they backtrack on a promise not to vote for a GST.
They then imploded because the very people who advocated this policy and who didn’t have party support whiteanted the only leader who may have got them above water like what was done in 2001.
you and all your colleagues deserve all the plaudits for the Senate result.
Have to agree with Homer.
John Cherry (Democrat, QLD) and Aden Ridgeway (Democrat, NSW) both lost their Senate seats in 2004, and both were picked up by the Coalition. It’s drawing a long bow to suggest that Labor’s forests policy was a crucial factor in bringing this about.
Life goes on. Disturbing that Latho is so happy to cash in all the mutual trust he seems to have had with members of the Labor caucus in return for the sale of a few books.
The factional angle in relation to The Latham Diaries seems to have been overplayed in the media. They seem to be much much more about bile than genuine criticism. I’d advise everyone and anyone who thinks otherwise to go read John Button’s Quarterly Essay from a few years back and compare notes.
Paul
Of course I endorse the criticisms of Labor & Liberal’s forests policies – especially the ones I made myself
Both policies contained loopholes which made it far from certain that either would implemented in the way that was being suggested (assuming any promise by John Howard is worth paying attention to in the first place). The ‘implementation’ of Howard’s policy since the election shows that.
However, the big problem with Labor’s forest ‘policy’ wasn’t the content (flawed as that was in my view), it was the way it was done. When you have an image of a Labor leader sneaking out of a carpark to try to avoid blue collar workers concerned about their jobs, while John Howard fronts up to a hall of the same people and gets cheered to the rafters, it is not a good look. I won’t sidetrack into the forests debate and how effective or otherwise various tactics have been, but you don’t get a more polarised issue in Tassie and when you have people deliberately trying to generate deep wedges on it, the smaller wedge is with the trees.
You can bag the Democrats all you want – enough of my position and actions on the GST and the events surrounding Stott Despoja’s decision to resign are on the public record to make sufficiently clear what I think about that period. But the fact is that (1) the Democrats vote had collapsed by mid-2002 and never recovered,so there were 2 years for the other parties to grab those votes, and (2) two years on from that, a week out from election day the polling showed the Libs were not going to get control of the Senate. There is no doubt there was a significant shift towards the Libs in the final week, and given that the week was dominated by forests, it is quite reasonable to assert that this was a key reason.
The key to preventing Senate control by the Libs was trying to avoid them getting 3 of the 6 seats in every state. They wre always going to get 3 in NSW – if Ridgeway had managed to keep his seat by some miracle, then it would have meant Labor only winning 2 instead of 3. Tasmania had long been identifed as the seat where the Libs would have the most trouble getting 3 Senate seats, followed by Victoria (a widely ignored factor in some of the preference decisions of Labor and the Democrats in those states). The big shift to the Libs – not least in Tassie – made line ball outcomes into a fait accompli.
The Coalition getting 4 out of the 6 Qld Senate seats was more of a fluke (which ironically only happened because the Libs & Nats were too divided in Qld to agree to run a joint ticket), but given how tight the final result was, I don’t think it is unreasonable at all to suggest that the final week surge to the Libs pushed them over the line.
Even if you think forests had nothing to do with it, it is a simple fact that Latham led Labor into the election which gave a Government control of the Senate for the first time in a quarter of a century. The Senate votes for the Libs in most states were their highest since the 1970s.
My wider point was that Latham wasn’t that fab, but he wasn’t totally hopeless in every respect either. And despite the current desire to now condemn his every utterance and action, some of his bigger and more specific mistakes don’t seem to be getting much attention – it just seems to be more of a general character assasination. (he undoubtedly largely has himself to blame that these disproportionate attacks are happening, but that still doesn’t negate the fact that they are disproportionate.)
test
There’s another thing that everyone forgets about Latho’s ‘factionalism’. He was a product of the NSW Right but because he had a brain and used it, and wrote books and acted like an intellectual, he was more hated by the Sussex Street machine that runs Syd-er-nee than quite a few card-carrying members of the Socialist Left. The NSW Right backed fellow conservative Beazley all the way in the stoushes over the leadership when Latham won.
Sussex Street’s entire reason for existence is to provide boring, quiet candidates who can shore up a boring, quiet State Government which provides heaps of jobs for boring, quiet apparatchiki, all the while trying to maximise the ‘Centre Unity’ share of the boring quiet proceeds over the Left. Latho threatened that safe silence and they’ve never forgiven him.
What delivered the coalition the senate – the apathy of the electorate for below the line voting. There needs to be above the line preferential voting.
As far as preferences not clear what gave the senate to the coalition but I recall Labor preferences gave us Family First and from what I’ve read on Hansard, Family First is more Labor-aligned as well. Really we should expect it to be – it deals in welfare of the people – families imparticular – just as Labor deals in the welfare of the people. Where over the last 30 years we’ve seen the Liberals slowly but surely come across to the welfare of the people vote simply because it is a vote winner.
Andrew,
I would agree that the timing of Latham’s forest policy announcement was dreadful, and that it maximised the damage in Tasmania whilst being too late to realise the potential gains of such a policy on the mainland. The lesson for Labor from this is the opposite to that which has been drawn in some quarters – Federal Labor would have done far better to have committed to a strong pro-conservation policy well before the election, and been prepared to face down the tantrums of Michael O’Connor, Pol Lenin, etc. and their fifth column operations on Howard’s behalf.
Had Labor announced such a policy two months, rather than two days, before the election, it would have had the triple benefit of: (a) ensuring coverage of the policy by specialist environment reporters who understand the issues, rather than political journalists who generally don’t understand environmental issues and don’t understand why people are concerned about them; (b) enabling sufficient time to make clear the differences between the Labor policy and the Coalition policy (assuming that Howard would have persisted with a policy like the pea-and-thimble trick that he eventually came up with); (c) minimising the impact of a stunt like Howard’s photo opportunity with the forestry workers.
In terms of quantifying the effect of what transpired in the last week of the campaign, clearly it caused a strong anti-Labor swing in Tasmania in the two northern seats that were lost, which also fed into a state-wide swing. However, a comparison with 2001 figures and with the anti-Labor swing on the mainland suggests that the Liberals would probably still have won three Senate seats in Tasmania had there been no anti-Labor swing, and certainly would have won three if the State anti-Labor swing in 2004 had been no greater than on the mainland.
As for the mainland, it is interesting to note that the average anti-Labor swing in the five mainland “forestry seats” nominated by the forest industry was less than the national average, less than the relevant State averages (NSW and Victoria), and less than the average for rural and regional seats overall. If the mainland seats with a concentration of forestry families did not swing in sympathy with their Tasmanian confreres, it is implausible to posit a pro-forestry sympathy vote elsewhere on the mainland.
To end where we began, the real problem was that the mainland gains which Labor had previously realised from strong pro-conservation positions in previous elections weren’t forthcoming – and this, to reiterate, was more a matter of timing than substance.
Andrew,
I would agree that the timing of Latham’s forest policy announcement was dreadful, and that it maximised the damage in Tasmania whilst being too late to realise the potential gains of such a policy on the mainland. The lesson for Labor from this is the opposite to that which has been drawn in some quarters – Federal Labor would have done far better to have committed to a strong pro-conservation policy well before the election, and been prepared to face down the tantrums of Michael O’Connor, Pol Lenin, etc. and their fifth column operations on Howard’s behalf.
Had Labor announced such a policy two months, rather than two days, before the election, it would have had the triple benefit of: (a) ensuring coverage of the policy by specialist environment reporters who understand the issues, rather than political journalists who generally don’t understand environmental issues and don’t understand why people are concerned about them; (b) enabling sufficient time to make clear the differences between the Labor policy and the Coalition policy (assuming that Howard would have persisted with a policy like the pea-and-thimble trick that he eventually came up with); (c) minimising the impact of a stunt like Howard’s photo opportunity with the forestry workers.
In terms of quantifying the effect of what transpired in the last week of the campaign, clearly it caused a strong anti-Labor swing in Tasmania in the two northern seats that were lost, which also fed into a state-wide swing. However, a comparison with 2001 figures and with the anti-Labor swing on the mainland suggests that the Liberals would probably still have won three Senate seats in Tasmania had there been no anti-Labor swing, and certainly would have won three if the State anti-Labor swing in 2004 had been no greater than on the mainland.
As for the mainland, it is interesting to note that the average anti-Labor swing in the five mainland “forestry seats” nominated by the forest industry was less than the national average, less than the relevant State averages (NSW and Victoria), and less than the average for rural and regional seats overall. If the mainland seats with a concentration of forestry families did not swing in sympathy with their Tasmanian confreres, it is implausible to posit a pro-forestry sympathy vote elsewhere on the mainland.
To end where we began, the real problem was that the mainland gains which Labor had previously realised from strong pro-conservation positions in previous elections weren’t forthcoming – and this, to reiterate, was more a matter of timing than substance.
The forestry policy was poorly argued.
The present policy is similar to tariffs. It allegedly supports jobs.
It doesn’t.
What should have been argued strongly and specifically was getting companies to go up the value chain.
This means more money a better furure and in the long term more jobs.
In the Senate people have always wanted a stopper in the Senate.
The Democrats imploded so you couldn’t vote for them. the Greens are mad so you couldn’t vote for them and if you are voting for the Libs only people like me would vote for the ALP in the Senate!
Hey fyodor.
I noticed in bullfighting there is a matador, a toreador and finally a fyodor!!
I also thought the policy a good one in substance and agree with the appalling timing analysis, yet there was also a problem of style. The policy should have been negotiated with the trade union movement, well in advance, not dumped at the last minute take it or leave it style. If this had meant the policy would not have been as good, and I’m not sure this would have been the outcome, then so be it. Labor cannot get too far in advance of its base, no matter how good the policies may be in a progressive sense.
eeek, I agree with CS.
I need a drink
A fair comment, Chris, except that in the case of forestry the leaderships of the relevant trade unions have adopted a belligerently defensive and fundamentalist stance which makes dialogue very difficult, and sometimes leaves Labor governments no option but to bypass them.
A case study: the South-East Queensland Forest Agreement, which was jointly negotiated by the Beattie government, the peak industry body (the Queensland Timber Board) and the main forest-oriented conservation organisations (the Rainforest Conservation Society and the Wilderness Soicety). Where was the leadership of the Australian Workers Union? Out in Ratbag Right land with Pauline Hanson and the National Party opposing the agreement.
There are reasonable people in the Forestry Division of the CFMEU, notably Craig Smith from NSW. But Craig has been gagged by the National office.
Fortunately, most union leaderships in environmentally sensitive industries, and the current leadership of the ACTU, take a more enlightened approach, even when they don’t necessarily agree with environmentalists, although this is not widely publicised.
Paul – I agree with your last comment, although the other thing to emphasise with the Qld Govt agreement was that even though the Union leadership opposed it, it didn’t harm Beattie politically (indeed I’d say it was a plus).
Apropos of this debate, I just noticed an item in today’s Crikey by Ben Oquist, the Greens’ long standing spin doctor in Parliament House which people might find instructive in the light of current debates (both on this thread and more widely). I’ll paste it here without further comment…..
Greens staffer Ben Oquist writes:
No doubt you have heard some of Latham’s fine words over the last week. While much of it is crude, there is none the less a very very rich vein of truth in what he has been saying on many issues. His statements about foreign policy (and how safe New Zealand is from a terrorist attack), individualism and materialism this morning for example.
I think that while some in the political class and mainstream commentariat are suggesting that there is nothing worthwhile in the diaries, many — particularly in the Greens constituency — will be taking good heart from what he is saying. So much of it is Greens sentiment expressed in a language that cuts through.
Here are a couple of bits relating to the Greens that I have picked up from reading the book this morning that haven’t been directly covered in the media so far.
“Bob Brown is killing us on this issue [Iraq] through the power of a simple, commonsense message: Bush is an imbecile and Australia should not be part of this war”
“I also like Brown: other than economic policy, our beliefs are quite similar. I prefer his political values to the likes of [Dick] Adams and Michael O’Connor [CMFEU forestry division], with their close links to the timber and woodchip bosses. It’s a shame that people like Bob Brown have been lost to the Party. Gough tells me he was a member in Western Sydney in the 1970’s. [this last bit is untrue actually]
“And then there was the Forestry Division of the CMFEU which organised the rally for Howard, the same CFMEU that was subjected to a Royal Commission by the Howard Government. This one was even beyond Billy Hughes.”
“The problem with the Forestry Division is that it has formed a dependency relationship with the companies. Their officials can’t fart unless the bosses say it’s ok.”
“The Media. As detestable as ever. One thing I underestimated was the capacity of the Liberals to use large parts of their commercial media as an extension of their campaign. The Murdoch tabloids, for instance, kicked off the scare campaign against the Greens, which the Government finished off in their last days of the campaign. I knew Murdoch was backing the Government, but not as a formal part of its campaign.”
All in all I think there is much to congratulate Mark Latham for in this book. It is a shame these honest things are not said by more politicians when they are actually in parliament. Thank God the Greens are there to do it!
A self serving Greens reading Andrew.
Meanwhile, Kerrist. Latho’s on Lateline, again, tonight!
I hope he’s not a regular nightly feature from now on. The takeout from tonight – he doesn’t like Ruddy much.
There’s more exciting revelations over at Catallaxy – Dave Ricardo has found some clear evidence that at least one diary entry must not be contemporaneous.
And, also, proved that Rafe Champion really is Mark Latham. Or the other way round.
“clear evidence that at least one diary entry must not be contemporaneous.”
A few extracts strike me that way.
This goes to my threshold question about whether it’s a ‘diary’, a title from which the thing pulls all its authority, whatever authority it has. We, or some authorities etc, need to see the original diary to clear this up.
Somebody should approach MUP.
“Labor cannot get too far in advance of its base, no matter how good the policies may be in a progressive sense.”
Except when that base is the Tassie forest workers. They are not shifting – and if they are not in cahoots with their employers then they should be. Those Tassie unionists are, in fact, Howard’s base. Latham just did not see it coming.
Andrew, I doubt that it was Latham that delivered the Senate to Howard – although he may have contributed to a low ALP vote in Qld. It’s more likely that some former Democrats voters went to the Liberal Party…
I just read some more of the posts. I agree with Andrew that Tasmania was the best chance for the Libs to win only 2 of the Senate seats and thereby only control a minority of the senate – as the polls suggested might happen in the months before the election. Perhaps the events of the last week of the campaign changed things. But it’s impossible to say, isn’t it?
The policy should have been negotiated with the trade union movement, well in advance, not dumped at the last minute take it or leave it style. If this had meant the policy would not have been as good, and I’m not sure this would have been the outcome, then so be it.
Sorry, I’m struggling to see the relevance of this comment to an old post about the Latham Diaries?
He’s talking about that Latham’s Tasmanian forestry policy as a number of comments discussed the Tasmanian situation with timber workers.
Above Scott’s comment was one from someone with my name – reading it, I realised it was me – and I felt as if I was looking at myself a year ago – odd feeling!
Ok, thanks, Sacha, didn’t re-read the thread.
Mark, do you have any plans for all the threads on this site other than them just sitting on the web-site?
I guess they could do star jumps on the website, Sacha?
What did you have in mind?
laugh No I just wondered if you were thinking of publishing any particularly good posts/comments?
One of the main reasons to oppose the invasion of Iraq was its entirely predictable aftermath. It suits many commentators to peddle the falsehood that the events of the past three years could not have been foreseen when the basic problems were glaringly obvious: the potential for a high death toll that would turn the population against the liberators, the rallying of disparate factions around insurgency, the inherent divisions within Iraqi society that could only limit the success of any nation-building exercise, particularly as the country would be recovering from the trauma of a homicidal maniac dictatorship, sanctions and war.
Now that comment really doesn’t have much to do with post.
It’s odd what’s happening with these old posts!
I mean the link to “factions around insurgency” points to the University of Oklahoma Health Centre. Perhaps it’s sophisticated academic spam?
Check out the comments on this old thread:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/03/30/a-letter-from-toni-negri/#comment-207183
From that one down.
They’re all grabs from previous comments on the thread and the links are to healthcare sites.
Very strange! Spam?